Self Analysis III

Tool Selected: What’s My Emotional Intelligence Score?

The emotional intelligence test measures the ability of people to deal with the world around them, handling their emotions and interacting with the world in a healthy way. This test by Daniel Goleman was published in his book on Emotional Intelligence. Almost 10 years later, he wrote Primal Leadership, but he wrote this book on EI out of a response almost to the world’s love of the IQ test when he felt that it greatly missed many characteristics of people that relate critically to their overall success in this world.

Bringing this topic to what was discussed in class; we discussed the role of different intelligences in groups and the importance of balancing technical strengths with interpersonal strengths to form resilient teams that could best handle challenges facing the team. This kind of corporate awareness of personalities is a key development as companies move away from strictly IQ or knowledge-based metrics of individuals to metrics that strive to capture other elements of intelligence.

Analysis of Self

My score placed me a point below what Goleman determined as a “high” emotional intelligence. Like the other tests, this result comes as no surprise to me. In fact, I would venture to guess that my score has leapt dramatically in the last two years as events in my life have brought about a tremendous amount of awareness of the surrounding world and later a growth in my own self-awareness. These factors together have developed my emotional intelligence, yet I realize how much there is still to grow.

Action Plan

In an interview with Daniel Goleman, the editors of Inc. Magazine ask the following question and receive his reply:

Inc. : You've found that emotional abilities can be learned. Does this mean we can all work on what you call our "emotional competencies" and get better at them?
Goleman: And even beyond that. Follow-up studies--five years later--show not only that those improvements hold up over time on the job, but that people also start to improve on their own in new areas as well.

Stepping directly from his point, my SMART goals are as follows:

• Write weekly in a journal on the topic of personal development, noting specifically non-technical aspects such as interpersonal skills, communication skills, and sensitivity. Periodically review past entries to monitor progress.
• Read at least one book on the topic this year by Daniel Goleman and post a review on Amazon.com by December 31^st.

Sources

Goleman, Daniel, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, New York: Bantam Books, 1995.

This book sparked a worldwide discussion of emotional intelligence in the business world and soon led to conferences on the topic.

Ibid, Working with Emotional Intelligence, New York: Bantam Books, 1998.

Goleman followed up his 78-week bestseller with this book to answer many of the questions that arose following the release of his first book and provides many tools in an applied sense.

“Open Books Management,” Inc. Staff, Inc. Magazine, August 1999, http://www.inc.com/magazine/19990801/827.html.

This article discusses both of Goleman’s books and includes the interview quoted above between the staff and Goleman.